Yes. I wonder how long he will put on a brave face like he did after retiring today and get ****ed off with the situation instead. I give it half a season before he loses it in some way.
Regardless of the reasons for jumping ship, it would be hard for any driver to put on a brave face after the result today. #irony #lastlaugh etc...
As you say, it's those off extra seconds that make the difference, and was his big problem in 2014 as well, that and he never made an overtake stick on Hamilton. Unless he can find that edge, he will constantly play second fiddle and now it seems Mercedes have Ferrari to worry about, so it's not just a case of finishing 2nd a lot then hoping Hamilton retires so he can bag a load of extra points again. Mercedes will be worried about Ferrari, if Rosberg wants a crack at the WDC he needs to get ahead in the points early on, as unlike last season when they were so far ahead and could fight freely, I can see Mercedes invoking team orders if Ferrari are close after about say 12 races. There will be battle between ROS/HAM to be the lead driver at that point to avoid team orders being handed out to them.
True, but it still makes me laugh because it is Alonso. Ferrari were quoted as saying that they like the way Vettel works as it's done in a calm, methodical way. Sounds like Alonso throwing tantrums behind closed doors (and in publiv) was disrupting the team more than they made out at the time.
What about him, the guy knew Allison was now there in the team, designing this years car more to a 'kimi style' and being more front positive. Allison is a proven designer to the quality of Newey, I'm struggling to truly understand why Alonso ran... Alonso jumping to McLaren just makes it seem like a rash decision to protect ones own reputation when seeing how good the Ferrari is in Kimi's hands *the kimi of Lotus*, call me crazy but it stinks that he knew Kimi would've probably beaten him in this car and he wouldn't get the maximum out of it. That or Ferrari 100% knew they needed somebody like Vettel to maximise this style of car like Kimi can and Alonso was from a different cloth and would struggle like Vettel did with the RB10 for example. Ferrari with the masterstroke move, they got a driver who loves ferrari and a team leader that builds the confidence of everyone around him.
Great race..I am very happy That Ferrari not only won the race but put an end to this stupid equalization talk from that old guy Bernie. Also red Bull needs to take a leaf out of Ferarri's book.. Work hard and results will come. Red Bull needs to understand that winning by handicapping a team isn't really winning, so great job by Vettel and Ferarri. Also Kimi was a little unlucky the whole weekend too. Rosberg, well he is a shadow of himself from last year. I always doubted his overtaking skills as he has never actually overt.amen his team mate and made it stick. The young guys in the Torro Rosso really drove well. I almost cried for Alonso... I wonder how he must feel right now...saying he think he made the right decision...I hope he is right and I agree with Lewis, that such a good driver should be fighting at the front not struggling at the tail end. So Horner, now you look stupid. Get your team to buckle down and let's have a real fight between the top teams. Oh by the way, Ferarri also showed they have the experience on Mercedes when it comes to tactics. Mercedes totally mucked it up when they pitted so early with the safety car. Hamilton said the team had decided that if a safety car came out they will pit... You have to think on your feet sometimes. You have to switch strategy to suit the occasion. But all fair play to Ferarri, so now Honer will start doing his work.
Are you watching BBC or Sky? Either way, I have to agree, the pro-Lewis bias is annoying and they do tend to lay it on a bit thick at times. Anyway, Thank god for Ferrari, I expected another Mercedes whitewash so I'm really happy that we've had a race. I'm not going to get too excited as I think it was more of a case of the stars aligning right, rather than a changing of the power in F1, but it was still nice to see another car win on pure pace.
It was Sky - Im not adverse to supporting the Brits - far from it. It just comes across so lame sometimes, especially in race like this which had so much to talk about.
Great to see Ferrari back on form, hopefully they can join the championship fight. Kimi was once again unlucky and head he not had the puncture then it could have been a Ferrari 1-2. I don't know if missing FP1 and 2 cost Hamilton because he never really looked like beating Vettel today who was back to his championship winning form. It was an enjoyable race too.
Nice to see Vettel get a win after all this time but if he is going to make those whooping noises each time it will get tiresome pretty quickly.
Well, it was Mercedes' race to lose, and they lost it. I think the rain washing away the rubber yesterday in qualifying affected them badly; the more abrasive and less grippy surface combined with their high levels of downforce meant they couldn't keep their tyres within the operating window and damaged them far worse than Vettel did on his Ferrari. They also failed to cover off Vettel sufficiently when he switched to the options and began tearing chunks out of their lead. That said, I don't see it as a paradigm shift for the championship. I'm getting flashbacks to the 2011 season and Raikkonen's performances in particular - while the other teams will catch Mercedes on their day, Mercedes are strong all the time, and a great driver can only haul a good car so far up the grid without the help of good development. Today Ferrari were quick, at another track Williams will be quick, but at every track we know Mercedes will be at least second fastest. China will probably be broadly similar in terms of the aero profile, lots of long straights and medium-speed corners. Third sector will suit Williams, first two sectors will suit Ferrari, I think. If I had to call it now I'd say Hamilton to take another victory but closely followed by Vettel.
BBC is not much better, and I completely agree. Support British but at the end of the day I'm a F1 fan, I want to see the best drivers race each other, if Lewis wins, great, but if he doesn't, that's great too. The pure Lewis show annoys me, and I wish they would remember that a little more.
I am very happy a Ferrari won. As it destroys Horners argument that 'we need equalisation'. OK so Merc messed up on strategy but Lewis could not catch Vettel. All bodes well for rest of season, as long as Merc don't have extra power modes that haven't been enabled before.
Nico back in January, think he might be choking on them now... "Sebastian will see my taillights on many occasions. "I don't want to appear arrogant but if I go by the 2014 results, I can risk it all and say no to a Ferrari challenge
Well, like most of you, good to see a Ferrari win. Lewis wanted a challenge from another team to focus management on backing the best driver. Never thought I would be pleased to see Vettel win again, but I was. His emotion seemed genuine too, nice. As for Alonso, too early to judge if he did the right thing, he knows that. Ferrari might win some but will they genuinely challenge for the championship. That is the question for Alonso. A better start than last years season for F1 fans. Mercedes should have won tho, they had the pace, 7-8 seconds gap is far less than a third pit stop. It was traffic that changed the dynamic....bad strategy call. This is Mercedes weak spot...amateurs on strategy calls and a few other bits...good engineers.
Not sure i agree on the pace. Vettel was looking after his tyres, he had more pace in the locker if needed for any reason and the Mercs had absolutely no chance of ever 2 stopping, the Ferrari's looked capable of doing so since Friday. Basically they played it perfectly and Whilst it's true the Mercs are still quicker over 1 lap, the Ferrari was genuinely quicker on the race runs and had been all weekend. If Vettel was on the same strategy as the Mercedes, his tyres were holding on better so would still have been faster.
Fell asleep during the race due to it being on at silly oclock and spending most of the day up a ladder. About to sit down and watch the race finally. It looks like we might have a competition on our hands... Thank god!!! Take that, put it in your pipe and bloody well smoke it Mr. Horner!
Hmmm, not entirely convinced tho I did consider that the Ferrari probably has less downforce. Ferrari caught Lewis very quickly but I wonder where it all might have landed without the safety car and early Merc pit stop. It put Merc in the pack which cost dearly.
Sure, they got caught in traffic after that, but they effectively got that put stop for free still (bar the positions of course, just time overall race time wise). Before the safety car it;s worth noting that Hamilton was actually already being closed in on by Vettel. even when their tyres were fresher and they were in clearer air after each of their 3 stops gad shaken out, they failed to really eat into Vettels advantage despite him being on significantly older tyres then them, the Mercedes, as in practice, had worse degradation on both compounds. Without the safety car, If Mercedes attempted to 2 stop, Vettel, due to the tyre usage and straight line speed/drs would have eventualy had very them easily on track. As it stood they had to do 3 stops and got one of them almost free (or at worst half price if you included the traffic, they still finished the race almost exactly where they were when Vettel pitted for his first stop, effectively they made no progress in nearly 40 laps!) Practice showed over stints, all being equal, the Ferrari was consistently able to go a minimum of 3-4 tenths a second per lap faster. Vettel towards the end was controlling the gap and protecting his older tyres, if anything the final gap FLATTERED Mercedes, Ferrari were actually very comfortable.
